A Senate hearing on Tuesday looked at ways in which the French authorities could make it more difficult for operators not licensed in France from offering their products to French citizens.

They are now looking at adding wording to the new gambling bill, set to &#8216-open up&#8217- the market in time for the World Cup this summer, that makes it illegal for any French-based company from taking advertising or even simply linking to certain sites.

Those sites based inside France, including multi-nationals with French subsidiares, notably Google, found to be &#8216-aiding and abetting&#8217- (no pun intended) foreign operators could face fines of up to €100,000.

This is just another example of the French bill being a facade. They want to appear like they are liberalising their market, to fit in with EU rules, but clearly they are going to make it as hard as possible for foreign operators to offer their services to value-deprived French citizens, and are even looking to make it difficult for those who do apply for a French license.

At what point is someone going to wake up and say &#8216-enough is enough&#8217-? Don&#8217-t wait for someone else to do it, sign our petition today and add your voice to the thousands of EU citizens already calling for fairness in online gambling.

Folk activism broadly corrupts political movements. It leads activists to do too much talking, debating, and proselytizing, and not enough real-world action.

He asks the libertarian people to stop investing in ideas but, rather, in actions:

If a fraction of the passion, thought, and capital that are wasted in libertarian folk activism were instead directed into more realistic paths, we would have a far better chance at achieving liberty in our lifetime. We must override our instinct to proselytize, and instead consciously analyze routes to reform. Whether or not you agree with my analysis of specific strategies, my time will not have been wasted if I can get more libertarians to stop bashing their heads against the incentives of democracy, to stop complaining about how people are blind to the abuse of power while themselves being blind to the stability of power, and to think about how we can make systemic changes, outside entrenched power structures, that could realistically lead to a freer world.

My conclusion is that while something like seasteading or crypto anarchy may indeed be the most hopeful path to a freer future, those are not the only sorts of approach worth attempting. An alternative, for academics, authors, newspaper columnists, anyone able to produce ideas and information and put them into circulation, is to try to alter the mix of free information that drives the coarse control mechanism of democracy.